Golden Harvest Festival

James, Aidan and I took Mom, who is visiting from Knoxville, out to Beaver Lake Nature Center yesterday to attend the Golden Harvest Festival. It was a beautiful day to be outside - sunny with temps right around 70 - and it was fun to see the nature center transformed into a country fair. There were craft vendors (some tacky, some okay and quite a lot very good), games for the children, a horse drawn cart ride, live music and, of course, food. We started off with freshly made donuts and cold cider, which Aidan chugged with great enthusiasm:

Aidan also enjoyed playing the midway games - here he is at the
ring toss:

He won a medal for his efforts:


After we viewed all the booths and ate lunch, we showed off Beaver Lake to Mom. We were fortunate to see a butterfly emerge from its chrysalis:


We saw these turtles sunning themselves on a log in the lake:


Mom agreed that Beaver Lake is a beautiful and tranquil place, although I think we walked a bit too much for her!

A Fair day

When we lived in Raleigh, we went to the North Carolina State Fair every year but for some reason or another, we never went to the state fair in Georgia; I don't even know where it takes place. Now that we are in New York and the state fair is here in Syracuse, we were excited to restart our annual tradition.

Yesterday we attended The Great New York State Fair along with 98,469 of our neighbors and we had a great time! We arrived at the fairgrounds around 8:30 am and were able to park about as close as humanly possible for mere fair attenders. The sun was shining, the temp was about 52 degrees and the fairgrounds were just starting to come to life. Few places were serving breakfast but we followed our noses and soon were sitting down to hearty plates of food. Aidan spotted a teacher's aide from his school, so we enjoyed pleasant conversation with Mrs. Layou and her husband.

What a fun day! We liked going into all the barns and seeing the various animals. The piglets were adorable:


This little goat liked the hay in the next stall better, so he squeezed his head under the wall and was happily eating his neighbor's hay:


This handsome fellow posed quite nicely for me:


We spotted a gorgeous dragonfly sunning itself on a wall:


We spent a lot of time in the horticulture, science and industry, arts and crafts, and NY agriculture buildings. Aidan was fascinated by the model displays:


As with any fair, the FOOD is one of the highlights, and you can find just about any kind of food to eat or not eat, as was the case for us with this vendor:


Aidan parked himself between our two orders of clams from Doug's Fish Fry and happily chowed down with both hands:


One big difference between the North Carolina and the New York state fairs is that alcohol is served at the New York fair. Here is James quaffing a cold one:


We also tried a wine slushie - yes, you read that correctly, a wine slushie:


The wine slushie was interesting, I will give you that. (The wind was quite lively, which accounts for why my hair looks like it was styled by a leaf blower.)

All in all, we had a great day at the fair. The sounds and smells were interesting, the people watching was stellar and the weather was pleasant. We are full up on fair until next year.